Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-28
DAILY HERALD.
CENTRAL AMERICA.
Rich Rewards Awaiting the En-
terprising Americana.

Rich Rewards Awaiting the En-
terprising American.
Mexican Trade JournaLl
Geographically speaking, the terri
TORY of Central America is that part
of the North American continent in
-cluded between the Isthmus of Te-
huautepec and the Panama canal.
Politically speaking, however, what
the natives call "Centro America" is
understood only of the now separated
and independent republics of Guate-
mala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua
and Costa Rica, with the British col
ony of Belize or British Honduras.
These five states when under Span
ish rule, were known as the "Kingdom
of Guatemala, and after achieving
their independence without bloodshed,
September II, 1921, formed awhile
the Confederation of Central Amer
ica;" but lack of union among the
various leaders, lack of political edu-
cation among the masses, and also
most specially, as we are inclined to
think from our large travelling expe-
Tience in Central American countries,
lack of roads and easy communication
between the various states, soon
brought about the dissolution of the
union, and each state established for
itself as an independent republican
government, waiting to see rebuilt in
better times the federal union for
which Morazan and Barrios shed their
blood, and which is the constant aspir
alton of the Central American masses
and the aim of every clear-minded
patriot.
1t is to these countries OF Central
America, where nature has distribut-
ed her treasures with most bounti-
full hand, that we wish to direct the
attention of American capitalists and
tradesmen, that field so full of re-
sources and a market so near home
and so easily treached may not be-
come, as it most likely to, unless
Americans awake to their duties, the
prey OF British and German traders.
To-day German hardware and Man
chester goods cheaply made and
brought to Belize, Livingston or Puer-
to Cortes are inundating the country.
While American enterprise is looking
all the world over for far-off and
doubtful fields wherein to extend it
self, it forgets what is nearer home
and more likely to be safely remuner-
ative.
We are sending our negroes to the
Congo, at large expense, while three
days from New Orleans they would
find country where no color line was
drawn, and where the healthy and
sunny climate, the planting of tropical
fruits, cotton, coffee, tea, cacao, ramie
and sugar cane or few hundred dol
lars invested in stock would make life
easy and insure fortune.
We are sending to Brazil and the
East Indies to buy our coffee and
sugar, while on the hillsides of Hon.
duras and Guatemala, less than a
weeks travel from Chicago, and hav-
ing easy communication with every
European or American port, cof-
fee, cacao and vanilla grow
wild, and what is not needed for
home consumption is left to rot on the
ground. Sugar cane exists there,
planted by nobody knows whom, and
it never needs replanting, the lazy
aud happy proprietor having only to
cut and chew. and what the dark
eyed sefioritas do not use to make
sweetmeats is fed to mules and cattle.
Cotton, the king of the Southern
States, is there, tree of majestic
proportions, growing and bearing for
more than forty years; sarsapa-
arllla, quina, quassia, liquid
~amber, guaeo, aloes, belladonna,
e and all kinds of medicinal plants,
many of them unknown vet to the
tbsssnical classifications, abound in
the tropical mountains, and form
what is called the "botica del pueblo;"
tobacco, whose growth is only cir
cumscribed by government laws, and
whose use, universal in these coun-
tries, brings the largest government
revenue, is bought in Europe as being
superior to the Havana, and there is
never enough of it ON the market.
Gold and silver mines, to make
Jealous the heart of "Forty-niner,
are known to abound in every range
of mountains. A gold nugget, sold at
once for $3.50, was found in the Rio
Negro, near the plateau which sep
arates the Valley de Agalta from the
Valley del Guayape. In the Guayape
and its numerous affluents from the
Nicaragua, as from the Yoro side, the
Indian women wash for gold when
money is needed at home, and take
out with no other tools than their
humble kitchen ware several ounces a
month. Iron, tin, lead and copper
are looked upon in the country as
though an iron hill of gigantic pro-
portions and purest ore, at short
distance from Tegucigalpa, the capital
of Honduras, awaits from the creation
the magic touch of an enterprising
Yankee.
Mahogany and India-rubber trees
abound on the banks of the rivers in
low places on the Atlantic coast, and
the Indian hunter sells to the white
man his discovery of a mahogany tree
for ~, and the white man gets at such
a ridiculous figure two tons of mahog-
any wood. The Indian receives $25
for 100 pounds of "caoutchoul, and
the white man makes $50 or $40 clear
profit on the transaction.
We have there in Honduras or
Guatemala more pine than in many
Northern States, and in the evening
branches of ''ocote" are the only
lights which dispel the darkness OF
night in many huts and haciendas,
and whose joyous flames guide the
weary traveller through narrow paths
to the hospitable dwelling where he
will swing his hammock.
Timber trees, and giant trees, too,
rclothe the mountain sides with an
evergreen mantle, and it is with gen.
uine stupefaction and awe that the
traveller from colder climates, where
nature is more chary of her magnifi-
cence, enters for the first time the
depth of mountains, where stiffness
subdues the soul as of one entering q